mokeefe - 2015-08-10 03:22:40

If you are a self respecting human being, don't watch this. This is more of a incomprehensible mess than pretty much anything I can remember in recent memory. They reuse many clips used in the show and the the stuff that isn't reused does not correlate with the story the presented in the show at all. Maybe this is the story from the manga but it is directly tied with the show so I am judging it as such. If you want my thoughts on the whole series I have written my thoughts on that so you can do check that out. Now, I will briefly say what I think about each area you usually find in a review.

STORY
Makes no sense with the one presented in the show. This would have been a great way to start off the show but then Shigatsu would have had to actually have had a budget since it relied heavily on reused flashback scenes. 

ART
As stated they reuse more footage than even the show does and its truly disgusting to see how lazy A-1 was being with this OVA. The OP does look much better than it originally did and so does the ending song but I think they were cleaned up for the Blurays. The newly animated scenes mostly looked really cheap and the one or two that didn't probably were reused from the show that I didn't pick up.

Sound
Nothing new here. Same old show. They did remix one track from the OST. There was one scene of note that had an insert song blaring over an important scene with Aiza eavesdropping on Kousei practicing his piano. That scene was extremely frustrating as we wouldn't have even known that Kousei was playing if it was told to the audience.

Enjoyment
It was like getting stabbed with a rusty knife.

Overall
This could have been an interesting episode or arc in the show if it was handled in the show but it wasn't. I think that if they were more accurate to how the show presented his past, the OVA would have been much easier to watch. I would have actually been more interested to see his past in a much more grimdark manner. One thing I forgot to mention is how happy the OVA is. 

Tl;Dr Shigatsu shot itself in the foot. A bad show now with a worse backstory.

Thank you, A-1 Pictures.

gerda38 - 2015-05-14 21:04:17

When I first read the description before it was released, I was disappointed. But it was actually great. It's still overwhelming and meaningful to talk about Arima's past in the perspectives of Emi and Takeshi.
Looking forward if they can still have another OAD standing from the perspective of Kaori. If no I will get mad.